Bertrand asked for Pierre Gomon, and discovered that it was Pierre Gomon himself who looked at him through the iron lattice.
“Hello, sir, have you a quiet attic for Bertrand du Guesclin?”
The voice was familiar to the merchant, but, like his neighbors, he lived in perpetual terror of Croquart’s men. Anything that walked the streets with a clank of steel made the burghers of Pontivy shiver behind their bolted doors.
“I will wager, sir, that Messire Bertrand du Guesclin is not within ten miles of Pontivy.”
“How, Pierre Gomon, will you tell me I am not myself? Come, I am here on my own errand, and heed a quiet hole to sleep in. Here is my hand, with the ring I had from you two years ago.”
He put his hand close to the grill, but Master Pierre Gomon was not to be satisfied with any such cursory inspection. He left Bertrand standing outside the gate, and, bringing a lantern, flashed the light upon the ring Du Guesclin wore.
“Yes, it is the same. And your face, messire?”
Bertrand had put his visor up.
“Ugly enough to be remembered,” he said, with a laugh. “Come, Pierre Gomon, we are both Breton men. Do you think I am here in Pontivy to screw money out of you with Croquart and his rabble?”
The merchant’s face betrayed ineffable relief. He unbarred the gate and let Bertrand in, shooting back the bolts again with the feverish haste of a man shutting out some wild beast.